


Melting Ice

by PrincessAmericaChavez



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, Reunions, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessAmericaChavez/pseuds/PrincessAmericaChavez
Summary: There’s a welcome familiarity in becoming a shadow, walking around Winterfell without a signle pair of eyes catching sight of her. She paces through the corridors, high and low, watching the survivors gather around.Gendry is not one of them.





	Melting Ice

When the fight is over, Arya stands in the middle of the Godswoods trying to catch her breath. It takes a while, longer than it should, but victorious cries fill the night eventually and that is how she knows it was all word it. By then, Jon has made it to the woods. She takes him in, the bloody clothes, the exhausted face, the horror in his eyes. He’s alive, though, and she’s quietly thankful towards her god for not taking his name yet.

“BRAN” he yells as he runs in, and only skids to a stop halfway through the field of bodies. “Arya?”

She doesn’t speak. Wouldn’t know how to, yet. It was all over to quickly and she can still feel the fire of the battle coursing through her veins. Her mind is still no one’s. It doesn’t matter. Jon looks at Bran, looks at the shattered ice at Arya’s feet, at the Valyrian steel dagger in her hand. When his eyes meet hers there are a million questions that she can’t answer yet. Not without telling him about her past, her journey, her many faces, and then she would never be Arya Stark again in his eyes. The thought is more terrifying than death.

When Jon hugs her, she can barely respond. It should be comforting and soothing, but her heart is still too numb to feel anything that gentle.

Jon pushes Bran into the courtyard as the three of them stumble out. He pauses by Theon’s body, thanks him as he closes his eyes forever, then keeps moving.

As they reach the open space, Arya takes the fallen bodies for the first time. She wills her heart to be stone, indifferent to death as it should be, but the scale of horror around her pierces through her armor like a spear. She recognizes some of the faces that rush towards them. The tall wildling, Jon’s bookish friend, Davos, The Hound, Brienne, Pod, The King Slayer. They speak over themselves, tired but smiling. Davos puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder and congratulates him in a soft tone that makes Arya think of her father.

She tries to disappear under their attention, to merge with the shadows and be no one again. It’s best like that. Jon needs the recognition of this victory to secure his claim to the North.

“And where are you going?” The Hound asks, catching her by the shoulder. Arya glares up at him as if no days had passed since their time together. But many days have passed, and they all weigh heavy in her heart.

“Arya killed him,” Jon blurts out suddenly. “The Night King.”

Arya stills when she feels the eyes falling on her. Tall eyes, all of them. If she followed Gendry’s advice, she’d never fight anyone.

 _Gendry._ The thought cuts through her but she pushes the worry away for now.

She can’t think of him right now. She can’t break.

Their gazes fall on her, doubtful, judging, measuring her as if trying to decide if this could be true. The disbelief in their faces harms her pride. Arya lifts her chin and keeps her face carefully trained on an even expression. Her eyes meet theirs with a challenge. She’s no one again. No one, wearing Arya Stark’s face.

“Well done, My Lady,” Brienne nods, and she’s the only one that doesn’t seem shocked. Surprised, maybe, but then again so is Arya herself.

They disperse without talking much more, and she’s thankful that no one tries to celebrate her like they had her brother. She has no idea what she would do with it.

Sansa emerges from the crypts shortly after. Rattled. Arya crosses through the field of corpses to reach her sister, relief filling her for the second time tonight.

“You’re alive,” Sansa smiles, voice shaky.

Arya arches an eyebrow, pretending offense. Sansa hands over the knife she’d given her earlier. The sharp edge is bloodied. With a look, she questions her older sister.

“The crypts,” Sansa deadpans. “The death rose there, too. We lost a few but then they... stopped, just like Jon said they would.”

Arya nods. “The Night King is dead.”

“Did you kill him?” Sansa asks, serious and honest, with the voice of someone who has executed killings of their own before. Arya nods. “Good,” her sister says.

Sansa’s lack of doubt and matter-of-fact tone are oddly soothing. Arya appreciates not being questioned. She thinks, not for the first time since her return, that perhaps she has more in common with her sister than either of them ever suspected.

After that, there’s work to be done. Bodies are moved, wounds are patched, people are fed. Arya stays away from it all. She’s good for killing and that is it. Even tending to her own wounds is usually messy and complicated. She works for death, and this is work for the living. There’s a welcome familiarity in becoming a shadow, walking around Winterfell without a single pair of eyes catching sight of her. She paces through the corridors, high and low, watching the survivors gather around.

Gendry is not one of them.

As the hours pass and the sun rises in the sky, his absence becomes evident. Arya feels it like a gaping hole in her chest. She doesn’t dare look for his face in the piles of bodies, but he’s nowhere amongst the living either. She would know. She would see him. She always does, no matter the crowd. Ever since they were kids, her eyes are called to him like a magnet. He isn’t here. There’s only his hammer, abandoned close to a large pile of bodies.

Her throat burns and her eyes sting with tears at the thought. She desperately tries to fight it back. She can’t lose people, because she’s no one. She can’t feel pain, because she’s no one. She can’t fear death, because she’s no one. But she’s also Arya Stark and she just lost her best friend to death.

She quietly makes her way to the forges before she knows where her feet are leading her. It’s a good place to hide, though, she knew since she was a kid. Especially now, after a big battle, no one will be down here. Too much to get done out there with the living to be surrounded by cold metal and fire. That is not why she’s rushing here, though, and she knows it.

As she makes her way down the dark steps, a loud metal clang echoes from bellow and sends a bolt of adrenaline through her veins. She finds herself clutching her dagger again, ready to kill more wights. There’s another loud sound like someone is throwing things across the room, followed by a furious groan. A groan that sounds human, alive. A groan that sounds like-

Her feet are still quiet as a shadow as she makes her way down and turns the last corner to uncover the forges before her.

There —bloodied, bruised, dirty, sweaty, beautiful— stands Gendry Waters. His back is arched as if a great weight bored him down, his hands clutch the working table’s edge, his head bows low, glaring down at whatever sits between his hands. His chest rises and falls heavily. For the third time tonight, relief washes over Arya Stark. This time so overwhelming that she can’t even find her voice.

With a sudden and violent movement, Gendry grabs something from the table and throws it across the room with a scream. Arya recognizes the weapon he made for her as it’s flung through the air against a wall. The two pieces of her staff hit the floor with a dry sound that echoes across the forges.

“Do not throw my stuff around,” she deadpans, frowning.

Gendry nearly jumps out of his skin as he turns to face her. His breathing is heavy, as if he was still in battle, his eyes wide and... and tearful.

“Arya,” he breathes her name as he had hours ago, before the battle, when neither of them thought they would live to see the break of dawn. He sends a glance to her weapon and back at her. “I thought-” He doesn’t get to finish the thought. He rushes towards her, taking big steps across the room until his hands find her shoulders.

Arya stands her ground, suddenly nervous. Gendry holds her at arm's length as his bright blue eyes take her in. She can see him linger in every wound. The one in her head is very messy, half her face feels stiff with dried blood; her neck still stings from the mark of cold fingers holding her in place; perhaps the one on her side hurts the most though when she breathes. Arya’s eyes come up. She holds his dirty face between her fingers and finally accepts the truth. A truth that a few hours ago she didn’t allow herself to even consider. She smiles, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

“You’re not dead,” Gendry says with breathless disbelief.

“Not today.”

He kisses her and it’s different than before. There are hunger and desperation in it, yes, but there’s also something else, something tender and warm that wedges its way through her and melts away the ice of the battle.


End file.
